Reusable "zip-lock" bags

So I've seen several different versions of these around, but most of what I've seen has sounded pretty complicated (sewing vinyl to the inside, etc), but this woman on the I Can Teach My Child blog is brilliant.  She guest-posted (is that a word??) this tutorial on Oopsie Dasie, and it is fabulous.  She used a vinyl tablecloth to make her baggies.  You know, the kind you use on a picnic table that has soft cotton on the back?  The tutorial is very easy to follow, and the tablecloth only cost me about $3.  No more wasting money on plastic bags for me!

My first bag took about 45 minutes, mostly because I had to keep stopping and starting.  (The second one only took 20 minutes!)  I would suggest using a more heavy-duty needle than you would normally use, and be prepared to sew more slowly.  The vinyl gets very thick towards the end and I nearly broke my size 14 needle.  A 16 worked just fine.

In her last step she has you put the velcro together and stitch up the sides, so that the stitching is on the outside.  I did mine with the stitching on the inside.  Just fold the bag in half with the Velcro on the outside, sew up the sides, then turn it right-side-out.  .....it'll make more sense when you read her instructions.

The second one I made a little bit wider (I believe her tutorial says to make it 7.5" wide, but I went up to 8" for the second one.)  It only took about 20 minutes to make start-to-finish.  These really are very simple!

See the difference in the width?

These are the perfect size for snacks and (hopefully) sandwiches, they are washable, and they are somewhat insulated with all the felt on the back of the table cloth.  Plus, the bags only used about 1/100th of the oblong tablecloth (Ok, I just made that percentage up), so I could make a ton of these bags and still have enough table cloth left to make some bibs.  Hmmm... tomorrow's project??